That didn’t take long.
Shortly after OpenAI fired its CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft hired him, along with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, to lead the company’s new, “advanced research team.”
Microsoft is an investor and partner of OpenAI, owning a very large stake in the company; Microsoft also uses OpenAI technology in its Bing search engine.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who shared the news on Monday, wrote to X that the company remains “committed to our partnership with OpenAI.”
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“(We) are confident in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in our continued support of our customers and partners. We look forward to meeting and working with Emmett Shear and the new OAI leadership team.”
As for Microsoft’s new hires, Nadella wrote, “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources they need to succeed.” And in a answer to Altman recognition of his new role, he wrote that he was “super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation.”
OpenAI unexpectedly fired Altman last week, with the board first looking to replace him with the company’s CTO Mira Muratti before settling on Emmett Shear, a former Twitch executive, as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, has also stepped down as chairman of OpenAI’s board.
Sam Altman won’t be back: OpenAI’s new interim CEO is Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear
All these changes, many of them apparently sudden and unexpected even by insiders, are sure to deeply affect both OpenAI and Microsoft, as well as the relationship between the two companies. Given how much news we’ve heard from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Altman over the past three days, we expect to hear quite a bit more in the coming weeks and months.
